Kate Jeonghee Byun. Ph.D.

Dr. Kate Jeonghee Byun is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at NEOMA Business School.

Her research investigates how AI-mediated digital entities, including digital twins, virtual influencers, and digital humans, drive consumer behavior and reshape marketing strategy. As AI-generated agents become embedded in everyday consumer experiences, she unpacks the psychological and behavioral mechanisms through which these entities alter perception, trust, and decision-making.

A second thread of her work harnesses AI as a methodological lens for understanding consumers. By mining the prompts consumers craft when engaging with generative AI, or capturing naturalistic discourse via social media, she develops new approaches to measuring how people genuinely reason about trade-offs and navigate the gap between behavior and perception to surface the cognitive structures that conventional measurement obscures.

Together, these streams situate her at the intersection of AI, digital marketing, and consumer behavior, with the goal of advancing both theory and practice as artificial intelligence fundamentally transforms the consumer landscape.

To learn more about her research, please see this page.

Before entering academia, she spent over a decade in senior marketing roles within the luxury and retail sectors at globally recognized companies. Her work focused on digital marketing, e-commerce, and brand strategy. This industry experience informs her academic research with a grounded perspective that bridges theoretical insight and practical relevance.

Research Topics

AI-Mediated Consumer Behavior
Digital Entities
Computational Consumer Insights

Research Methods

Causal Inferences
Large-scale Field Experiments (i.e., online field experiments)
Text Analysis

Publications

Byun, K. J., & Yoo, S. (2025), "Does overconfidence of CEOs increase startup performance? The role of marketing capability", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 59 No. 5, pp. 1400-1425. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-01-2024-0085

Byun, K. J. (2024), "Enhancing appeal of aggregate payment framing: effects of temporal payment framing and goal proximity on consumer purchase decisions", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 58 No. 11, pp. 2426-2444. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-08-2023-0633

Byun, K. J., Park, J., Yoo, S., & Cho, M. (2023), "Has the COVID-19 pandemic changed the influence of word-of-mouth on purchasing decisions?", Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 74, 103411. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2023.103411

Byun, K. J., & Ahn, S. J. (2023). A systematic review of virtual influencers: Similarities and differences between human and virtual influencers in interactive advertising. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 23(4), 293-306. https://doi.org/10.1080/15252019.2023.2236102

Working papers

Byun, K. J., Hwang, Y., Cho, D., Yoo, S., & Haenlein, M., Virtual Influencers (Submitted at 4* Journal; ABS lists)

Mirowska, A., Arsenyan, J., & Byun, K. J. Virtual influencers (R&R)

Work in progress

Byun, K. J., Ringel, D., Haenlein, M., & Daegon, Cho. AI agents (Data collection)

Kang, J., Byun, K. J., & Cho, D. Autonomy in Digital (Ready to submit)

Yu, Y., Byun, K. J., Cho, D., & Yoo, S. Compassionate AI (Research design)

Byun, K. J. Compassionate AI review paper (Data collection)

Byun, K. J., Yoo, S., & Dubois, D. ESG activities and their impact on sales (Research design)

Funded Proposals and Teaching Experiences

Funded Proposal

“Recategorization of search goods and experience goods”

Data and Grant from Korea Marketing Association Mar 2022~ May 2023

Instructor

Lectured on marketing strategy, how to build marketing campaigns and brand identity for firms,

including Meritz Securities Co., LTD., LG Hausys, Nongshim, Sajo, etc.

Korea Management Association Consulting 2017~2021

Conferences

2025 The European Marketing Academy (EMAC) annual conference, Spain.
2024 The European Marketing Academy (EMAC) annual conference, Romania.
2023 The European Marketing Academy (EMAC) Doctoral Colloquium, Romania.
2023 The European Marketing Academy (EMAC) annual conference, Denmark.
2022 Korea Marketing Association, Virtual.
2021 Korea Marketing Association, Virtual.

Academic Services

Ad hoc reviewer Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , 2025
Ad hoc reviewer International Journal of Advertising, 2026
Ad hoc reviewer Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2025, 2024
Ad hoc reviewer Journal of Interactive Advertising, 2024
Ad hoc reviewer European Journal of Marketing, 2025

Research Committee, Marketing Department, NEOMA Business School. Depuis Sep 2025

Honors and Awards

Korea University Doctoral Fellowship 2020 ~ 2024

Scholarship for Academic excellence, Seoul National University, 2010

Committee member of Samsung Aptitude Test: top 5% excellence

Awarded Semester High Honors, Korea University